Welcome to 3-2-1 Tuesdays with Better Wellness Naturally- Self-Betrayal: The Habit of Saying “I’m Fine” When You’re Not
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Quick bits of therapeutic info and learning, ideas, concepts, and quotes.
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3: Keys
2: Concepts
1: Quick Article
"I will not stay, not ever again—in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself." — Glennon Doyle
3 Keys
You Can't Heal What You Keep Hiding
We've all said "I'm fine" when things inside us are anything but. Sometimes it feels easier to manage everyone else's comfort than to face our own pain. We think we're keeping the peace, but what we're really doing is disappearing. Self-abandonment doesn't happen in one big moment. It happens in a series of small ones where truth takes a back seat to approval.
Peace Built on Pretending Isn't Peace
Keeping things comfortable often means keeping yourself small. It may spare tension in the moment, but it creates distance from yourself, from your values, and from others. Peace built on avoidance always asks the real you to disappear.
Honesty Isn't Confrontation
Telling the truth doesn't make you wrong or hard to love; it makes you whole. When you stop managing how others receive you and start standing in what's real, you restore self-trust. That's where healing starts: when your inner voice and outer life finally match.
A Couple of Concepts
The Fawning Response
This is a trauma response where you avoid conflict or rejection by pleasing others. It's the instinct to say yes when you mean no, to smile when you're uncomfortable, and to stay quiet when you want to scream. It looks like kindness, but it's fear in disguise.
Self-Abandonment
Self-abandonment happens when you disconnect from your own needs, emotions, or boundaries to feel safe or accepted. You betray your own truth for the comfort of others. Healing means learning to choose yourself again, without guilt.
A Quick Overview: Self Betrayal
Self-betrayal is one of the most common yet least recognized forms of emotional pain. It's what happens when we prioritize everyone else's comfort over our own truth, and it's one of the core patterns we address if we’re working together.
According to Dr. Gabor Maté, emotional suppression, often learned in childhood, creates internal conflict that can manifest as anxiety, chronic stress, or physical illness. When children are rewarded for being "good" and punished for being "too emotional," they grow up believing that being loved means being less of themselves. That's where self-betrayal begins.
Psychologist Pete Walker identifies the fawn response as one of the four trauma reactions alongside fight, flight, and freeze. Fawning is what happens when we learn to survive by pleasing. It feels like compassion, but it's fear-driven compliance: a strategy to earn safety at the cost of authenticity.
Over time, this self-silencing becomes a habit. Research from the University of Rochester shows that when we suppress emotions for prolonged periods, we experience greater psychological distress and lower life satisfaction. Constantly saying "I'm fine" doesn't make us stronger. It makes us disconnected.
Here's the truth: self-betrayal can be unlearned.
Healing begins the moment you start listening to yourself again. It's in the act of asking "What do I really feel right now?" and allowing the answer to surface, even if it's messy. It's in choosing rest when you're tired, saying no without guilt, and speaking your truth even when it's scary.
Choosing yourself doesn't mean you stop caring for others; it means you stop disappearing for them. True connection starts when we show up honestly, with our needs, boundaries, and full humanity intact.
So, the next time you catch yourself saying "I'm fine," pause. You don't owe the world perfection. You owe yourself the truth.
References:
Garrison, L. W. (2026). When Control Stops Working: Nervous System Recalibration for the Chronically Vigilant.
Maté, G. (2003). When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress.
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). “Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes: Implications for Affect, Relationships, and Well-Being.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
A Trauma Therapist’s Guide to Life After Betrayal
by Laura Weber Garrison, PhD
New Review:
“I spent years trying to understand how trauma changed who I am, how I think, and how I react. Then I found Laura. She doesn’t coddle me or give me another excuse to stay stuck. She’s helped me understand what happened to my brain, my body, and my nervous system. In Going Rogue, she’s given me tools I can use outside her office and beyond her retreats. She brings decades of clinical and personal experience, scientific research, and the same profane honesty to this book that she brings to her practice. I only wish she’d written it years ago.” A.C.
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